Baby moose trapped in a lake is saved by Alaska man and police as its worried mom watches AP
Stonehenge solstice sunrise attracts 15,000 people BBC
Crisis memory, geopolitics and the risks of financial contagion Gillian Tett, FT
Climate
Relatives search for missing in Saudi Arabia as hajj death toll tops 900 France24
Heatwave in Mexico claims lives of more than 150 since March France24
Why some scientists think extreme heat could be the reason people keep disappearing in Greece CNN
India heatwave sparks spate of fires, ignites calls for stricter safety regulation enforcement Channel News Asia. Commentary:
every surface is hot to touch. The human body can’t endure a heatwave this nonstop without respite. ACs running nonstop, but rooms are barely cool, house plants are dying – you have to water them with boiling hot water. Struggling to breathe in the thick scalding air
— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) June 19, 2024
NCR = National Capital Region (India).
Bats drop dead from trees in Kanpur due to extreme heatwave India Today
* * * Economist suggests storing grain to prepare for next global emergency Guardian
* * * Occasional paper: Fungal banking Crooked Timber
Book Review – Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World The Inquisitive Biologist
Water
What happens if we break the Colorado River? Salt Lake Tribune
Syndemics
The destruction of public health and the growing threat of an H5N1 bird flu pandemic WSWS
Human SARS-CoV-2 challenge uncovers local and systemic response dynamics Nature
China?
Xi Jinping’s mystery PBoC plans surface with biggest shift in years Business Standard
China aims to solve property puzzle with affordable housing push, but debt cloud remains South China Morning Post
* * * South China Sea: Philippines advised to stake claim on disputed shoal with civilian site South China Morning Post
Philippines secretly reinforces ship at centre of South China Sea dispute FT
Putin, Kim and new multipolar world. Sullivan, striking Russia is common sense. Conflict in Lebanon (video) Alex Christoforou, YouTube. See at 8:30.
The Koreas
‘We’ll continue our struggle’: South Korea’s doctor strike crisis deepens as more join walkout Channel News Asia
Hanwha strikes $100m deal for Philly Shipyard Splash 247
Could CIA Sabotage North Korean Arm Shipments to Russia? Spy Talk
Inside the Success of South Korean Brands Harvard Business Review
Vietnam’s ‘bamboo diplomacy’ triumphs with visits from Biden, Xi and now Putin FT
Putin’s State Visit to Vietnam karlof1’s Geopolitical Gymnasium
Five Decades On, Cambodia Is Taking Ownership of Its Troubled Past The Diplomat
Syraqistan
Endless War, Not ‘Total Victory’: IDF Wants to Leave Gaza, but Netanyahu Has Other Ideas Haaretz. Commentary:
“What we’ve heard from the detainees: there is torture with electricity as well as suspension and stretching and there is also nail-pulling and the biggest affliction we have heard from some, which has been reported by more than one person, that the occupation tortured them in a… https://t.co/IGA2ZoGCqY
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) June 20, 2024
IDF transfers powers in occupied West Bank to pro-settler civil servants Guardian
The U.S. power structure is blindly dedicated to Israel Mondoweiss
Apologies Sir Atrios, Eschaton
European Disunion
French women voters swing sharply to far right Politico
Why the Greens are losing in the EU and what Ukraine should learn from it European Pravda
EU cancels vote on child sexual abuse law amid encryption concerns Politico
Dear Old Blighty
The Leaving of Blackburn Craig Murray
Sunak may sanction UK youth if they refuse compulsory national service Al Mayadeen
New Not-So-Cold War
Zelensky’s peace summit flop The Spectator
* * * US says Ukraine can hit inside Russia ‘anywhere’ its forces attack across the border Politico. Caption: “‘This is not about geography. It’s about common sense,’ national security adviser Jake Sullivan told PBS.”
U.S. will boost Ukraine’s air defense by pausing exports to allies WaPo
* * * EU Ambassador: “The ‘foreign agents’ law has frozen Georgia’s European integration” JAM News
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan & China: When is a done deal really done? BNE Intellinews
Digital Watch
This Week in AI: Generative AI is spamming up academic journals TechCrunch
Neo-Nazis Are All-In on AI Wired
Hackers ‘jailbreak’ powerful AI models in global effort to highlight flaws FT
Meta warns bit flips, other hardware faults cause AI errors The Register
The Bezzle
Ditching paper money has made Sweden a haven for online scams Straits Times
Fast Crimes at Lambda School Sandofsky
Supply Chain
Transhipment ports challenged by changes in call patterns amid the Red Sea crisis Hellenic Shipping News
Liberia blocks Russia’s Ingosstrakh from insuring ships in move against sanctions-busting “shadow fleet” BNE Intellinews
Healthcare
Drug Shortages Keep Growing. Older, Injectable Agents Are Among the Most Vulnerable. MedPage Today
The Final Frontier
Cosmic kidney disease: an integrated pan-omic, physiological and morphological study into spaceflight-induced renal dysfunction Nature. From the Introduction:
The renewed zeitgeist for space travel, ushered in by the advent of commercial spaceflight and tourism, has spurred on state-funded agencies to embark on even more ambitious exploratory ‘Deep Space’ missions. The first of these, namely the Artemis Program, Lunar Gateway space station and later the Deep Space Transport/Mars Missions, will for the first-time place humans outside of Earth’s protective magnetic field exposed to significant quantities of unmitigated space radiation and weightlessness for many months to years at a time.
The health effects of low Earth orbit (LEO) spaceflight (e.g. the International Space Station) are multiple, with much of the research communities’ intense focus centred on the musculoskeletal, neurological, ocular and cardiovascular degeneration that can manifest as early as a few weeks into a mission. Notably, the effects of LEO spaceflight on many other organ systems are less clear, with indispensable organs such as the kidneys receiving relatively little attention in the absence of overt symptoms. However, in the face of extended periods of deep space travel health issues may only present with late onset due to cloaked subclinical pathophysiology and chronic damage eating into the extensive functional reserves of such organs.
This Revolutionary New Observatory Will Locate Threatening Asteroids and Millions of Galaxies Smithsonian
Class Warfare
America’s Sweethearts Is a Surprisingly Infuriating Portrait of the Ultimate Pink-Collar Job TIme
High Expectations The Baffler
‘These Stores Are Unhealthy for Our Communities’: FAIR
Bella Baxter and the Machine: On Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things” and Julie Wosk’s “Artificial Women” LA Review of Books
Listen To Your Own Soul’s Warning Daily Stoic
Antidote du jour (Harald Wehner):
Bonus antidote:
why i just found out that my daddy be vacuuming twilight 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/VmbyjQCU9R
— andy 🌷🫧🍓 (@frogclubs) June 21, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
